Belgium: Bruges

I love leaving cities, because by then I know how they work, how to get around, I can reflect on what I've done there and be excited for heading somewhere new. Leaving is so easy. Arriving is exciting and overwhelming and a bit of a drag. Being dropped off a plane/train/ bus weighed down with my packs, no language or map or ideas of how things work is hard. I always feel so vulnerable and ignorant and out of place. City buses are my worst enemy! I have learnt from much experience that I can't guess the stop I need (I always panic and get off too early or relax and miss it) so now I ask the bus driver or other passengers to please tell me when to get off, and still they forget or tell me the wrong stop! I haven't had good experience with city buses! Trams are easier, metros are the best. Metros have maps and announcements and they stop at every station! Love them!
Anyway in Bruges I had to get a bus. I went too far, had to get another bus back, and the driver forgot to tell me when to get off. Then I trekked to the wrong Hoogestraat street. So for a small town, I managed to stuff up arriving spectacularly.

Bruges is beautiful, but most of it is fake because it was bombed so much. They've recreated the step-gable roof facades so all the streets look quaint, but only a few buildings are genuine (and have plaques out the front to proove it.) The town is so touristy, packed out with older tourists but there are also quite a few backpacker hostels and lots of people come because of the recent film 'In Bruges' which is funny, because the film basically just bags it out and yet has made it more popular. Every single shop is chocolate or lace or postcards, horse-drawn cart tours clop by non-stop, and buskers play classical music. It's like a fake fairyland with amazing cobbled roads and the belltower striking out songs for a whole hour. There are tiny canals under 15th century bridges (the ones that survived) and windows covered in flowers and windmills at the end of the road.

I climbed the 366 steps up the Belfry,

Ken: Coming up?
Ray: What's up there?
Ken: The view.
Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.
Ken: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't.

and the top section was so narrow that if someone was coming down, you couldn't go up. It was built like that so if enemies came, they could put the treasure up the top, and the enemy would have to go up single file and get knocked off one by one (300-style). And is where the overweight american tourist had the heart attack in the film.

I went out with people from my hostel to a specialty belgian beer bar where there were over 200 kinds of beer on the menu and it was easier to describe to the bartender what you felt like, and they'd produce the perfect beer. I had a peach one which was so delicious, and a honey beer, and a coconut beer served in a coconut shell (they had run out of their chocolate flavoured beer!) Some of the boys drank 12% beer... that's as strong as wine!